Possibly to do with object and subject, and the nature of observation? We know Mimara is 'different' because she has the judging eye, and when she sees someone (and the eye is open) she isn't just seeing her subjective impressions of person, but also the objective state of their soul (i.e. the fact they are damned).

As Kellhus said, the Inchoroi, the Consult, will eventually win. But it might not be this time. Though, it is hard, very hard, to imagine someone stopping the Consult this time: Its now comprised of 4 dunyain who I assume are each individually smarter and better military tacticians than the old Consult, and in their sum they must be far far greater. Far more Sranc - worse, mostly the sturdier horde from the Mountains, not to mention everything in the northeast, east, and western reaches of Earwa (where were presumably all cleared during Apocalypse 1).There are now only the exhasted remains of the schools. Apocalypse 1 had at least 3 gnostic schools and the Quya.Military power is at an all time low. All that remains are the Scylvendi and Zeum. (Btw, the last scene with Moenghus, it switches to 2nd person narrative (btw, fuck that, its worse than 1st person), so I expect Moenghus to do something strange).

I'm not convinced by this. I don't think the Consult are in particularly great shape. Golgotterath itself has been trashed inside and out. One of the horns has been sheared off, and the insides of the other one have been half wrecked by Kellhus/Ajokli's foot stomp. The horns are described somewhere in the text (I think in the appendix) as the 'Oars' of the Ark, which suggests to me they are important in how the Ark works, probably less fucntional following Arkfall (a crash), and now even less so. The No-God as a 'Prosthesis of Ark' may be have some sort of function as a substitute, but more likely won't in my opinion. The Consult have also lost (as far as I can recall) all their Non-Men mages.

The Dunyain have been shown to fail or fall short whenever they've been engaged outside Ishual and I don't see why the Mutilated should be any different in this respect. Remember, that the Dunyain project at Ishual is an attempt to shut off influences from outside - I think we can read this as trying to shut the Outside (big O) is either going to fail or turn out in a manner that is not expected.

I don't see a military solution to the No-God. However, there are still plenty of people in the Three Seas including millions of adult males, and thousands of potential sorcerors. The upshot of TAE is that the military, sorcerous and logistical hierarchy/ organisation of the New Empire has been destroyed. It can be replaced by something new and/ or different - which may be what is required.

Yea, I have to agree. The Great Ordeal was part of the Thousandfold Thought and where the Thought failed was when Ajokli "forced" Kellhus into the Golden Room ahead of schedule. If they go in with Serwe, Kayutas and whoever else was included in the plans, I believe they succeed. This just was never going to happen, because obviously Kellhus didn't plan for Ajokli to take over as he did. I don't even think he counted on Ajokli giving him divine power.

And in fact the whole thing is stymied when Ajokli stops his foot, trashing the insides of the Ark, and preventing Serwa etc getting into the Golden Room. Ajokli taking over is surely not part of the plan

Something that just came to mind when reading the above post.Sorweel and Oinaral descend into the 'pit' within Ishterebinth. Oinaral sacrifices himself so that Oirunas confronts (and appears to bring about the defeat) the Consult element amongst the Non-Men. Does this foreshadow what goes on in the Golden Room? We never actually see the resolution of Ishterebinth - perhaps to avoid any clues. There is also the soul 'sharing' aspect with the Amiolas, which may have some relevance

Imagine that Meaning is the distance between Subject (irrational) and Object (rational). So Meaning and value increase as a function of the difference between Subject and Object. Ascribing the sun rising to a Sun God is Meaningful; Heliocentrism, on the other hand, is not Meaningful, it just "is".

So when Kellhus describes the No-God as collapsing Subject and Object, it follows that it is also collapsing Meaning! Which was, you may recall, how Bakker described Kellhus' mission, to bring meaninglessness to a meaningful world.

I'm pretty sure I've an interview with Bakker where he says the task of the fantasy author is to create meaning out of something that has no meaning (or something similar) - i.e. making us care about things/ places that don't and never have/ never will exist.So... in the Second Apocalypse, he has made meaning out of something meaningless, by way of bringing meaninglessness to something meaningful . No wonder Kellhus went mad !

Ascribing the sun rising to a Sun God is Meaningful; Heliocentrism, on the other hand, is not Meaningful, it just "is".

A similar concept is expressed in The Hogfather https://www.amazon.co.uk/Hogfather-Discworld-Novel-20-Novels/dp/0552167584. Specifically this:http://www.incitingariot.com/2011/06/importance-of-belief-or-sun-is-not-ball.html "if the Hogfather does not make his rounds on Hogswatch (the Christmas equivalent), and belief in the Hogfather dissipates, then the sun will not rise tomorrow. That’s right. The fate of the world hangs on getting presents one night a year.The entire movie revolves around this idea. They must save the Hogfather, along with appearances by a few other mythic beings, or else the sun will not rise. But, towards the very end of the movie, the meaning of this statement gets a bit of a twist. Death has a granddaughter, naturally, and her name is Susan. She asks her dear old granddad to expound on what would happen instead of the sun rising. Death tells her “a burning ball of gas would illuminate the Discworld"

The dreams of Seswatha are quite a strange thing to be honest. Part of his soul must be trapped in his mummified heart.

This thread might be difficult to parse... I'm almost thinking we make/revive one specifically to discuss Seswatha/Achamian's dreams.

But Bakker did tell the draft-reading Nascenti we could discuss director's cut notation with the greater fandom and there are sections chopped from TGO/TUC that all but confirm the "Seswatha's soul is preserved in his Heart" speculation.

That's the kind of stuff that sounds crucial to our understanding of the story. Please do?

And Kellhus 'spoke' to Seswatha

Ah yeah I forgot about that part. Wonder if there's a clue in there to how Shaeönanra may have survived (if he's not in the mutilated).

Cities of the Plain trilogy by Cormac McCarthy is also worth checking out. Anything by Gene Wolfe is very good. The Silmarillion, if you haven't read it already (if not what the fuck are you doing with your life). James Ellroy's Underworld USA trilogy (American Tabloid, The Cold Six Thousand, and Bloods a Rover) makes grimdark fantasy look like Disneyland. Roberto Bolano is good. (2666 and Savage Detectives). China Mieville is also worth reading, as is Michael Chabon. Mary Gentle is very good - fantasy meets alternate history meets gender bending. Also check out William Dalrymple for good travel writing (middle east/ India), Tom Holland for narrative history, Tony Judt for politics. Diarmuid McCulloch (on Christianity) and Peter Heather (on the end of the Roman Empire and the beginnings of Europe) are also good reads. The Conversion of Europe by Richard Fletcher is well worth looking up - the process by which Europe became christian (not at all preachy) - on of the best books I've veer read.

I'm still not sure why everyone assumes the Mutilated were telling Kellhus the truth about Shauriatas, or indeed about anything else.

Like Kellhus' sword, Certainty is a weapon with two edges.

Indeed. We have a couple threads dissecting Bakker's comments and Shauriatas' status but - excess imagination aside - knowing Bakker, I imagine he thinks there is something textually evident that is not as clear as he imagined it was (whether that's Shauriatas-Uploaded or Shauriatas-the-Mutilated, I don't really care to guess).

In my handful of conversations with him about ambiguity/clarity moments in TUC (of which there were far less than TGO) nothing about Shauriatas came up except for the Tekne-Glamour Shauriatas seed which sets up the No-God's Kellhus illusion at the end.

And the Mutilated were clearly happy to let the OG Consult deceive Kellhus - If they could, they would have let the Tekne-Glamour Shauriatas talk Kellhus into the Carapace without ever exposing themselves, no doubt.

I don't see a compelling reason for them to lie about that fact. Certainly, it is possible they lied. But nothing seems strong enough to me. And this brings up the topic (which someone made a thread on before) about why they were trying to kill Kellhus before or even why they sought to use the hologram to make an image of Shauriatas.

Either way, I wouldn't doubt their statement until there is enough reason to.

I don't think they were ever trying to kill Kellhus. Decimate as much of the Ordeal as possible, for sure. But Kellhus was never in harm's way.

That's the conundrum. There's no reason for them to lie, but then Bakker sows questions about the fate of Shaeönanra. It's hard to imagine Shaeönanra duping the Mutilated when (some of) his faculties are supposed to be burning in Hell, so it seems we're left with either a willing possession or none at all.

I suppose we just don't know enough about how Soul-Trapping works, do we ?

Undo1. unfasten, untie, or loosen (something).2. cancel or reverse the effects or results of 3. cause the downfall or ruin of

Think that last definition is the objective one to use. He was slain or banished or his leadership came to an end.

There's a line in TUC about Shauriatas being 'the spaces in between' (or something the that effect). 'Undone' could be read as TauHorror's first definition - he's been detached from the larvae - and attached to 'something else'. What we know about him (super sorceror - exists beyond his physical body - can offer something new and different to non-men/ Inchoroi) suggests that is capable of surviving a lot of serious shit.

In the opening chapters of TJE, the New Empire protocols on "Identifying Skin-Spies" yield a Sayothi Skin-Spy, which Esmenet has flayed before the masses to remind them of the Consult and Kellhus' Great Ordeal. Theliopa suggests that the Sayothi Skin-Spy is a novel Tekne invention (and we'll recall that the Consult were originally only able to produce the Skin-Spies after 1700 years or so of trial and error).

Thus, given the timeline and the end of TAE, we can assume Zeum is already infiltrated by Skin-Spies. I'm just curious as to whether or not Ciphrang-Malowebi will be able to detect them or not...

But not overly relevant to the Three Seas, where there are very few Satyothi?

I don't think much should be made of the Satyothi Skin-Spy - all it tells us is that the Consult have infiltrated Zeum in the same way they have infiltrated everywhere else

The dreams of Seswatha are quite a strange thing to be honest. Part of his soul must be trapped in his mummified heart.

This thread might be difficult to parse... I'm almost thinking we make/revive one specifically to discuss Seswatha/Achamian's dreams.

But Bakker did tell the draft-reading Nascenti we could discuss director's cut notation with the greater fandom and there are sections chopped from TGO/TUC that all but confirm the "Seswatha's soul is preserved in his Heart" speculation.

That's the kind of stuff that sounds crucial to our understanding of the story. Please do?